The U.S. Supreme Court Monday evening overruled a lower court and declared the polls must open as scheduled Tuesday morning across the state of Wisconsin, despite a global coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 10,966 people in the United States.
Americans – mostly liberals, progressives, and Democrats – are furious. Republicans, who pushed to open the polls knowing turnout will be slashed, are thrilled.
Going to the polls to vote for many will not only be difficult, but potentially life-threatening.
Focusing her ire on the conservative majority’s justices Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Monday night that the Supreme Court was “undermining our democracy.” And in her dissent in the Wisconsin case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg warned the ruling could lead to “massive disenfranchisement.”
A great many poll workers, who are often senior citizens and at high risk of death from the coronavirus, refused to show up, forcing the majority of polling places to be shut down.
Here’s what the polls looked like when they opened Tuesday morning:
This tweet seems to sum up a lot of what many are feeling:
More videos of Wisconsin polling places, with what some are saying:
But this thread captures the existential anger many are feeling: